2 nurses in Uruguay charged with killing patients

March 19, 2012 -- Updated 1119 GMT (1919 HKT)

Suspects in the killings of patients by nurses are transferred to a police van after a court appearance on Sunday.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: One patient died a day after his discharge order was signed, an official says
• Two males nurses admit to killing patients at Uruguayan hospitals, a judge says
• A woman has been charged with being an accomplice in one of the killings
• According to the judge, the men say they didn't want to see the patients suffer

(CNN) -- Two male nurses face murder charges in Uruguay after admitting to killing at least 16 patients in two hospitals in the country's capital, Montevideo, a judge told CNN affiliate Teledoce.

One of the men has been charged with five aggravated homicides, while the other has been charged with 11 aggravated homicides, Judge Rolando Vomero said in an interview Sunday with Teledoce, noting that the two men appeared to have acted independently of each other.

The authorities are also charging a woman as being an accomplice in one of the murders, he said.

According to the authorities, the two male nurses, ages 39 and 46, both said they killed the patients because they did not want to see them suffer.

But apparently not all those killed were terminally ill. One patient had their discharge order signed one day before his death, said Interior Minister Eduardo Bonomi.

The killings took place at the hospitals of Maciel and La Espanola in Montevideo. One of the men worked in the neurosurgery department at La Espanola; the other worked in that same department, as well as in the cardiology ward at Maciel.

The police had been investigating suspicious deaths of patients at the hospitals for weeks after a tip off from a worker at Maciel.

A recent death prompted the police to accelerate proceedings and provided them with enough evidence to make the arrests, Bonomi said.

The authorities say they believe the nurses killed the patients either by administering a morphine overdose or by injecting air bubbles into their blood stream.

The government has set up an office to provide support to the families of the victims, said Health Minister Jorge Venegas.